Audio Video News

Home theater is increasingly a mainstream phenomenon, and no one recognizes this better than Sharp Electronics. During the last week of August, the manufacturing giant hosted its dealers and some members of the media at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines hotel/golf resort in a celebration of new products that included a DLP video projector with a suggested retail price right around $3000.

Attending scribes were treated to a side-by-side comparison of the XV-Z9000U, Sharp's highly touted $10,000 DLP projector, and the XV-Z90U, a new model that retails for less than one-third its price. A clip from Black Hawk Down was fed to both projectors, the 9000 on what appeared to be a 10'-diagonal screen, and the 90 on an eight-footer. The 9000 was better, of course—brighter, with better contrast, detail, and color accuracy—but the 90 looked very promising, considering that its light output is only 500 ANSI lumens compared to the 800–1000 achievable by the 9000.

The demo was somewhat compromised by ambient light in the large ballroom where it was held, but many of us came away marveling about how good the 90 looked head-to-head with its big brother. The 90 has many of the same features that make the 9000 so versatile, including what Sharp calls "2D Keystoning," or the ability to cast a perfectly rectangular picture when situated as much as 22 degrees off axis in either the horizontal or vertical planes. Some of us speculated that the XV-Z90U might look very good using a smaller screen—say, a 6' diagonal—in a very dark room.

This new projector is proof that the march of technology ultimately benefits consumers who are willing to wait for the third or fourth generation product before committing their money. At the current rate of price reductions, it would not be unreasonable to expect XV-Z90U performance to become available at under $2000 in the not-too-distant future.

In La Jolla, Sharp also debuted a new group of very impressive "Aquos" LCD televisions and two new high definition plasma-screen televisions. The 50" PZ-50HV2U and the 43" PZ-43HV2U high-def plasmas offer amazingly high brightness and contrast ratios of 830:1, allowing viewing in rooms with relatively high light levels. A sleek, separate audio/video control center ("AVC") includes two NTSC tuners for picture-in-picture performance, and allows for completely hidden cabling for elegant installations. The PZ-50HV2U will retail for approximately $14,000; the PZ-43HV2U will sell for around $10,000.

New Aquos sets include 22" and 30" widescreen, HDTV-compatible models. The LC-22SV2U and LC-30HV2U are the first such products in the Sharp lineup. The smaller one will be available in September at a suggested retail price of $3499.95; the larger one is available now at $7999.95. With its 13", 15", and 20" models, Sharp has expanded its range of cabinet colors to include black and beige in addition to the traditional silver, and the 4:3 aspect ratio "E" series includes speakers on the bottom of the cabinet rather than the sides for improved install-ability. The "C" series even includes a built-in "subwoofer" in the center of the cabinet's bottom for improved bass.

Budding electronic artists take note: Among the "trickest" of Sharp's new video displays were the LC-15B1U and LC-20B1U, which sport PCMCIA slots in their sides. With a memory card adapter, users can insert media cards from digital cameras into the slot and create an automated "slide show" of their photos using an on-screen menu. Photos can be viewed in index mode, or sequentially in intervals of one-second, five-seconds, thirty-seconds, one minute, five minutes, or one hour. The two sets are available now at $1699.95 and $2699.95, respectively.